Is the ACLU going soft on the First Amendment?

Is the ACLU going soft on the First Amendment? That's the troubling question raised by University of Washington law professor Ronald Collins, who notes that the ACLU just began its annual fundraising campaign and released an accompanying "National ACLU Workplan," which, in the organization's own words, "lays out [the ACLU's] plans for the year ahead [and] always addresses the most critical civil liberties challenges facing our country."

Yet as Collins reports, "surprisingly, protecting free-speech freedoms is not listed as one of this year's 'critical civil liberties' issues. Neither of the documents contains any mention of the First Amendment."

Collins also shared this discouraging comment from Harvey Silverglate, noted criminal defense and civil liberties lawyer, co-founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and former board member of the Massachusetts ACLU (and sometime Reason contributor). To say the least, Silverglate is not optimistic about the ACLU's long-term commitment to securing First Amendment rights:

Sadly, it comes as no surprise that the national ACLU Board and Staff are nowhere to be seen in the increasingly difficult battle to protect First Amendment freedom of expression rights. This is especially so in areas where the ACLU, more and more, pursues a political or social agenda where the overriding importance of the goal transcends, in the eyes of ACLU's leadership, the needed vitality of free speech principles neutrally and apolitically applied. Fortunately, some ACLU state affiliates still carry the free speech battle flag, but they are a diminishing army in a war that is getting more and more difficult, even though more and more important, to wage.

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I wonder where the good Professor Collins has been all this time. As is well-known, the ACLU started retreating from its once-aggressive defense of “free speech” at least a decade ago, and for good reason. Occasionally they will still get involved in a popular “First Amendment” case where the solution is obvious (good public relations), but you won’t find them touching anything like inappropriately deadpan “Gmail parody” with a ten-foot pole. See, for example, the documentation of America’s leading criminal “satire” case at:

No ACLU involvement there (very wise on their part), just a foolish submission from the ignorant hacks at the AACDL (which apparently influenced the absurd “First Amendment dissent” filed by the former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, who fortunately had to resign from his post a little while ago). And if this weren’t enough, I could point to various web posts signaling this phenomenon back when the transition began in the years following 9/11. Despite my deep respect for the academic community, Professor Collins seems to have been living in an ivy tower all this time, not to have noticed such an obvious and laudable trend.

Now that the proggies think they have won politically they don’t need free speech anymore. Never confuse their tactical support for free speech with a principled belief in free speech. They only cared about speech when their speech was being repressed.

“The ACLU just began its annual fundraising campaign and released an accompanying “National ACLU Workplan”

The ACLU just reflects the desires of its donors. Lots of organizations are like this.

Switching utilities from coal to natural gas releases 40% less CO2 into the atmosphere, but the Sierra Club opposes fracking and building new plants that burn natural gas instead of coal. Why?

Because opposing fracking is driving donations right now–and they may be a non-profit, but they’re still trying to maximize donations.

Same thing with the ACLU. Second Amendment cases don’t drive donations to the ACLU either. This just means their donors are turning against the First Amendment–and it’s reflected in their marketing.

Incidentally, this may auger well for the libertarian moment in a perverse way. The dividing lines are increasingly between those who are for and against personal freedom. That makes liberty the central issue rather than a distraction.

I don’t see much evidence of the right becoming more libertarian either though. With the exception of Rand Paul, Justin Amash, and Thomas Massie, there’s not too many pro-liberty voices out there. Certainly not enough to push back.

I get so tired of the backhanded defenses offered of the ACLU. The line is always “sure they are not perfect but they do a lot of good things”. No they really don’t. Every time I see someone doing good things for civil rights it is never the ACLU. It is always groups like FIRE and the Institute for Justice and the Innocence Project and groups like that. Occasionally the ACLU will defend the KKK or the Nazis right to march somewhere but given their refusal to take other more worthy cases, it seems that they do that because defending those groups serves the co purpose of embarrassing the right.

Meanwhile, the ACLU is now actively hostile to both free speech and gun rights. There really isn’t any defending them anymore.

Occasionally the ACLU will defend the KKK or the Nazis right to march somewhere

And really, when was the last time they even did that? Have there been any cases in the last, oh…, 10 years or so?

And you’re right, they take those because they’re both high profile, which drives donations, and they embarrass “the right”. It allows them to get the smug self satisfaction that comes from pointing, laughing, and saying “Pffft! Get a load of these guys!” to fellow progtards.

This should not surprise. The ACLU has always been highly selective in the civil liberties it will protect and those it will disregard, if not demonstrate outright hostility toward. Protection of property rights, the right to sell one’s services, the right to choose one’s profession, and the much-maligned liberty of contract have never been supported by the ACLU, and it almost always argues against them. It is entirely in keeping with the ACLU’s history to toss aside other civil liberties when they no longer serve the agendas of the ACLU’s predominantly left-wing donors.

Yes, they mention the 1st amendment in passing and talk about people’s right to protest, which is great. But they ignore all the issues on college campuses (particularly public ones), with “free speech zones” and PC-ism and micro aggressions and trigger warnings, etc., etc.

The ACLU is funded by donations, right? It’s no surprise a left-leaning organization is reflecting current left-leaning thought. For them, the 2nd went to the trash heap a while ago and the 1st should only apply to speech they agree with. No hate speech, whatever the Hell that is, exactly.

The good news, we have a First Amendement that’s in pretty good shape and a SCOTUS (for now) that respects the principals and philosophy that undergirds it. Remember, it was 8-1 in the recent Westoboro case (Clarence Thomas WTF).

Where has the ACLU been during all of the campus rape hysteria? I am just naive I guess and thought defending the wrongfully accused or any accused who is denied a fair hearing and due process was a pretty important civil rights cause. Yet, the ACLU is nowhere to be found. The Duke LAX case was about as close to an American Dreyfus case as you are ever going to see. Yet, I can’t remember the ACLU having much to say in defense of those who were wrongfully accused and kicked out of school in that case.

They are just another leftwing hack organization. And that is a shame.

That doesn’t surprise me. And if they did say that, they were admitting that they no longer have any interest in protecting civil rights by any reasonable definition of the term, as if they ever did.

Seriously, did the ACLU ever do anything but defend communists and pornographers and anyone else whose defense furthered the leftist cause? Even if you look back at the civil rights movement, it wasn’t the ACLU who brought cases like Brown. It was the NAACP. Thurgood Marshall wasn’t an ACLU lawyer.

I believe it came out during that famous case where the woman got into the officer’s academy and the ACLU official whined loudly that she should have been given preferential treatment during training when she failed out.

He made some tortured argument about lowering expectations when dealing with weak people. As I recall, it was kind of jaw-dropping.

Well as I’m sure you’re aware, for the collective good of us all, the ends justify the means.

There’s the good kind of egalitarianism that’s philosophically embedded in the US Constitution and based on the classical definition and understanding of human rights centered on the individual and there’s its evil twin, an ethical and moral inversion, that demands equality of outcomes. The ACLU have slipped over the Dark Side.

The ACLU and DPA are 2 great organizations that were victims of their own success. They see the end of the road and then backtrack. The country is gearing up for a “War on Speech” as the war on drugs dies down. This will be a full scale attack on the 1A including banning internet sites and shutting down comment sections based on the fallacy that “Free speech can incite violence” and all manner of “hate crime” laws based on campus free speech codes. David Frum is one of the pioneers of this philosophy, along with half the Chicago Law School. It is right out of the drug war playbook and employs the “Drugs makes you commit crimes” fallacy and of course “But what about the children!” So I actually see this as a success not a failure, we just must be vigilant. In fact the 1A is strong and has been vindicated multiple times by the courts. (Other Amendments, such as gun rights and illegal search and seizure are not so secure.) Trump is of course a grave threat to 1A. Ironically, his anti-PC attacks support it. For example, “Some people need to get beat up a little” makes it hypocritical to ban when others say something similar. Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Finally, always confront coarse or insulting language. Don’t be dissuaded by the people tell you to ‘ignore it – they are just crazy’. That’s how Europe’s war on speech began and they are waging a full scale assault and it is an olde-tyme witch hunt and it will not end well.

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